Once upon a time, there was a child who valued love and loyalty above all else. He was the son of a Dreamer and a Pragmatist, but his fledgling heart was one wielded with honest consideration. In some ways that innocence was revered by his family and his peers, but in others, it was reviled. Whatever he may have once believed in became transmuted over time until his kindness had been well and truly beaten from its meaning. As he aged, the child was diminished of his once buoyant nature until all that remained in its place was an utterly self-serving variant of charisma. It allowed him to bend ears where he willed and maneuver tongues if he so wished, but he hardly considered it a talent. It was more a necessity borne of his flagging integrity. The world had taken much from him and so it was only natural that he asked much of the world.
However, with Caelum, there existed no desire to take. Sure, Bolelyn wanted to take her time, take her smiles, and take her wisdom when it was imparted with some fervency, but he had never felt selfish in those desires. He wouldn’t fool himself into thinking he wasn’t covetous of her wholly equitable nature, but there was still that very small part of himself that venerated the former child. He wanted goodness to triumph in whatever avenues it was allowed and the child that was now a man recognized it in Caelum. Perhaps that was why he smiled when she rolled her eyes his way, honeyed laughter trailing in their wake. Boleyn enjoyed the sound as he would the enchanting softness of a murmuring beck - it transfixed. “Surely we can settle on a proper term of endearment, little flower. It was a little off-the-cuff, but I could understand if you preferred something more personal, like sweetheart or darling?” The jibe was delivered on a smooth tongue that curled behind his teeth as he simpered.
His flattery was shameless and perhaps a bit contrived, but he reveled in the way it bolstered her cocksureness. And what a sight it was when she at last employed that fiery part of herself that appeared latent otherwise. Even as she doled out her particular brand of ribbing, trying her best to off-put him, Caelum had always been a force of nature to be reckoned with. However, it only came on the heels of his goading as far as he’d seen, as in most other aspects she was quite prim and proper. Boleyn was in fact a creature of some integrity, but Caelum’s rectitude was true where his was quite bendable. Thankfully, it allowed him some measure of freedom when it came to indulging his fancies, both personal and professional. And it certainly didn’t hinder him as he imagined a shy little Caelum asking after him and his affairs. Making to look abashed, Boleyn paused in his banter to turn the bulk of his body more toward her, his chest and neck smoothing in closer in mock-seriousness. “Now what if I did?” he questioned sincerely, his gaze passing back and forth between her eyes of burnt cinnamon.
“What if it pleased me immensely to know that I’d caught your attention after we first met?” His voice seemed to drop to a low rumble at this, his lips turning upward into a soft, dreamy grin. “You know… sometimes the best truths come disguised as a lie. Are you certain you weren’t stalking me, little flower girl? Those are some awfully specific scenarios.” With a tenacious smirk, Boleyn set about righting himself so that she wasn’t bowled over by his abrasiveness. The jesting had returned in full force and he allowed their casual confidence to revert with it. It was often better to keep one guessing until all the facts were laid bare, as it was the only way he knew to protect the useless bit of flesh he called a heart.
But that was the thing about him and Caelum, they could move from sphere to sphere with relative ease. The warmonger had yet to experience such a dynamic with another living creature and why it was so inherent with the medic was anyone’s guess. As she bantered on, making light of his endless trifling, Bolelyn got to imagine what more days like this one would look like. Was it a picture he enjoyed? Was Denocte a place he could settle and thrive in while he consumed relationships such as this? However, the male was thus pulled from his pondering to acknowledge the growing heat of Caelum’s insinuations as she tried her hand at employing his own unique style of warfare. Touché. “Is that a fact?” He returned her gunfire with a grenade of his own as he challenged her assertions about commitment. Boleyn was rather certain she hadn’t meant it in quite the way she’d said it… but the niggling question still remained. Or had she?
Even as the flower girl trailed off toward more tamer grounds of conversation, the warmonger left little to the imagination as they walked shoulder to shoulder to her shop. Her sincerity had returned and he could note with more certainty that she might come back to circle his nonchalant insistence that things had been well and dandy since they last met. However, she seemed to move on easily, succumbing to the numerous traps he’d laid to keep her from asking too many questions about his state of mind. From simply knowing too much about him. He supposed there wasn’t terribly much to actually know... but he preferred privacy anyways. “Whatever you need to tell yourself to get by my dear Caelum. Your dreams are your dreams and even ladies get lonely sometimes. I won’t hold it against you.” He winked at her then, his smile growing tenfold.
It was with that, that they approached the shop entrance to make their way inside. And like the grand unveiling of a newborn child, Caelum welcomed the warmonger into her space. It was strange how endearing it felt to look at the things she’d assembled there. From the glimmer of firefly lanterns to the mix of mismatched appointments, the shop was inviting and warm, not unlike Caelum herself. She seemed to bleed from the very seams of the place, her love and care showing in small garnishings and the thoughtful color palette. Boleyn turned to study her then as she too looked out at the things she’d built and assembled with her dreams in mind. He may not have known of her nervous vulnerability, but he responded in kind with a fervent “Well this is phenomenal Cal - truly.” The praise was uttered with some certainty and he had turned a megawatt smile her way. She had created something special no doubt. “Now… what kind of tea would a connoisseur such as yourself recommend?”
Boleyn
@Caelum - <3
